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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22829833">Peace Offering</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampAmber/pseuds/VampAmber'>VampAmber</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Bullying, Complete, Crimes &amp; Criminals, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, Evil Twins, False Accusations, False Identity, Gen, Lies, Mental Health Issues, Mistaken Identity, Murder, POV First Person, Prison, Sister-Sister Relationship, Stalking, Suicide, Suspense, TV News, Thriller, Twins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 13:21:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,804</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22829833</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampAmber/pseuds/VampAmber</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They always tell you that twins have this special bond, that they're born best friends. Well, they used to tell you the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it, so I'm pretty sure "they" don't know squat.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Becky started impersonating her twin sister Rachel at an early age, just to break rules and make trouble. The crimes only got worse as they grew older. Becky eventually became an expert at looking, moving, and speaking like her sister, to the point that the police arrest Rachel for her sister's armed robbery.</p>
<p>But Becky finally messed up. She left fingerprints. Rachel was free now, because fingerprints don't lie. Then she unwillingly meets up with her sister, and Rachel finally gets true freedom.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Peace Offering</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this from a prompt on a writing prompt app that I downloaded onto my tablet. It was supposed to be a little bittie ficlet, but for once my muse actually let me get almost 3k outta this. Yays! I didn't think I was even capable of writing original stuff anymore.</p>
<p>But to anybody who is here because of my fanfiction, no worries, I'mma still write fic, I promise. ^_^</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They always tell you that twins have this special bond, that they're born best friends. Well, they used to tell you the earth was flat and the sun revolved around it, so I'm pretty sure "they" don't know squat.</p>
<p>We were born only minutes apart, and even the hospital had a little bit of a problem telling us apart. Our mom had told us more than once that if they hadn't used different colored hospital bracelets, they probably would have never known which was which.</p>
<p>As we grew older, our parents kept us color coded, since they were apparently not smart enough to just give us different haircuts. I was always dressed in cute little green outfits, while Becky got to enjoy all the yellow clothes that she could ever want. We were already sick of it by kindergarten, but only Becky tried to use it to her advantage.</p>
<p>It started out small, little things. I'd be called to the office because I supposedly pushed a boy down on the playground, or I painted a swear word on the wall, or I stole the teacher's reading glasses from her desk. I'd get detention and a stern talking to from our parents, then I'd be grounded. I never did any of those things, obviously, but it took me a few years to realize who did: a blonde girl in a green outfit who looked just like me.</p>
<p>I would get in fights with Becky after I finally figured it out, but that was just another way for her to use me. A few words into every argument, she'd start crying loud enough for our parents to hear, then lied about me saying mean things to her. They never believed me, because by then I'd been constantly getting into trouble for years. Becky had a talent to not only impersonate me when she did something bad, but to look more innocent than Mother Theresa when I'd tell on her. I even ended up with a therapist that I saw twice a month to try and figure out why I kept getting into trouble and lying about it.</p>
<p>We were almost teenagers before the color coding rule was lifted, so we finally got to pick our own styles. I wore a lot of jeans and tshirts, while Becky dressed like a porcelain doll, with as much frills and lace that Walmart could provide. The new clothing didn't help the situation for me, though. She'd still steal my clothes to imitate me, only now the stakes were higher. She'd beat up kids and take their money. She'd key the car of any teacher that she disliked, though she never had any reason to dislike them. She became well versed in the ways of spray painting graffiti and somehow managing to get a little bit on me when I was asleep. She was practically a criminal genius, and I'd had enough.</p>
<p>I was only fifteen when I spent three months' worth of allowance on a new haircut. I knew it would make my parents angry, doing something like that without permission, but since Becky was always getting me in trouble anyway, it didn't really matter.</p>
<p>When I got home, my parents reacted exactly as I thought. It was kind of nice, getting punished for something I actually did, for once. My enjoyment didn't last long, though. An hour later, Becky came home, and I'm sure you can guess what her hair looked like. All that planning, all that money, and she still managed to screw me over. Even worse, she told our parents it was her idea, and it was supposed to be a surprise, but I ditched her at the hair salon when she was only halfway done. Score yet another point for my twisted sister.</p>
<p>I made sure to keep a close eye out for which colleges she was applying for during our senior year, so that I could find some as far away from hers as possible. For possibly the first time, I lucked out, because she was going to college in California, and I'd managed to get into one in Massachusetts. We'd have almost an entire country between us, and maybe I'd finally be safe.</p>
<p>But nowhere is safe from that monster. She would sneak onto campus to pose as me and do her same song and dance with my reputation and criminal record. And if that wasn't enough, she used my credit cards to buy the plane and bus tickets. I was kicked out of college by the end of my first year, and was forced to move back home, where I was "the troubled twin" to everybody.</p>
<p>I was working at a fast food place on the edge of town when the cops came for me. According to them, I was wanted for armed robbery. In the security camera footage, Becky managed to not only look like me, but she'd even got my mannerisms down perfect. I spent a year in jail and two on probation for that.</p>
<p>I think she realized that me being in jail made it impossible to use my image, so she started breaking my probation in small enough ways that I didn't go to jail, I just got more years of probation.</p>
<p>Last month she screwed up, though. I have no clue if it was accidental, or this was a new torture, but she left fingerprints. She had most likely been stealing the guy's valuables when he interrupted her, and she shot him in fear. That's what the crime scene made it look like, the dead guy on the carpet, a bullet right through his heart, and spilled money and jewelry on the floor around him, next to the gun that killed him. She'd been smart enough to get rid of any evidence that could lead the gun back to her, but on the victim's body she'd left a couple of fingerprints.</p>
<p>I was, of course, arrested again for something Becky did, but after a couple of hours in an interrogation room and repeated fingerprinting, I was free to go. Becky was nowhere to be found, though. She must've realized just how bad she'd screwed up.</p>
<p>It was so weird seeing my faces on wanted posters, and had to prove my own identity often. But things eventually cooled down, and the warrant for her arrest stopped causing me problems.</p>
<p>Everyday I would check on the minimal progress they'd made on her capture, and as of this morning she was still as impossible to find as that first night. I wasn't near as paranoid about her finding me as I should've been, which was proven to me when I felt the heavy wooden bat hit my head.</p>
<p>My head was killing me when I woke up, and there was some rope cutting into my wrists. The chair I was on sat next to an old, dirty mattress, a pile of clothing next to it.</p>
<p>"Oh good, you're finally awake," my sister's voice trickled into my ear. "I was going to just have you meet me here so we could talk, but you weren't being very cooperative. Locking your doors and windows, not going down any deserted alleyways or abandoned roads. Nowhere safe for me, so I had to change the plan a little bit." She stood in front of me, and I could understand now how she hadn't been caught. Her newly brown hair was cut in an awful cut that managed to hide part of her face, and there were multiple facial piercings spread out among the goth makeup. She looked like Hot Topic had thrown up on her, and absolutely nothing like herself.</p>
<p>"You," I started to say, before coughing. The movement made the blood from my head wound drip into my ear. "Why? Why are you…"</p>
<p>"Here?" She supplied. "I came to apologize."</p>
<p>My jaw dropped open at this admission, before I burst out laughing. "You think the shit you've been pulling on me for decades can be wiped clean with just a 'sorry' and puppy dog eyes? Give me a break!" I started to try and get my wrists free, but it only made the rope cut in deeper.</p>
<p>Becky came closer, looking sincere somehow. "I really am, though. I did such horrible things to you. For so long. I hate myself for it now, I've even been seeing a therapist about it. I'm sick, Rachel, sick in the head. I wasn't really in control before."</p>
<p>"Seemed pretty in control to me," I added sarcastically.</p>
<p>She stepped closer to me, and now I could see the tears pouring out of her eyes. I'd only ever seen her look this realistically sad when our dog got hit by a car when we were ten. She looked at me with those eyes, like I was a golden retriever taking his last few, painful breaths.</p>
<p>"Please forgive me?" She begged through the tears. "I wasn't me before. I was some kind of monster that hurt you, that hurt other people, but I don't want to be that any more."</p>
<p>I started to soften, just a little. Maybe she was telling the truth? "You still have to go to prison for that guy you killed," I reminded her.</p>
<p>Her face somehow managed to crumble even further. "That was, it was an accident, I swear," she said as she knelt down onto her knees to be in a more begging appropriate position.</p>
<p>"You were accidentally robbing his house with a gun in hand?" I asked.</p>
<p>"He was my ex, and I was only trying to get the stuff I left when he kicked me out," she explained.</p>
<p>"All that expensive jewelry was yours?"</p>
<p>"No," she huffed, "they were his wife's." My eyes went wide as she continued. "He'd only been keeping me as a mistress while his wife was away on vacation in Europe. He kicked me out when he found out she'd be home by the weekend."</p>
<p>"Really?" I asked. I was already starting to hate the scumbag, feeling almost as if he deserved what he got.</p>
<p>Becky sadly nodded. "He was supposed to be at some dinner thing, so I was gonna pop in and out while he was gone. And yeah, maybe I took some of her jewelry and his money as revenge, but I never wanted to kill him."</p>
<p>I was hanging on every word by now. How could I ever have expected her of murdering someone?</p>
<p>"He snuck up on me as I was about to leave. He started yelling at me, threatening to call the police on me, and I panicked. And when he started towards me, I grabbed the gun he had sitting on his desk, thinking I could knock him out with it, like I did you, but it went off in my hands. He fell, so I dropped next to him to see if I could help him. But he was dead," she said, pausing to dry her eyes on a shirt from the pile. I noticed then that I was crying, too.</p>
<p>She gave me a weak smile. "Let me untie you, that can't be comfortable. I was just afraid you'd run and bring back the cops."</p>
<p>"Like I would do that after all you've been through?" I replied honestly. "Maybe we could get you a good lawyer, make it manslaughter instead of murder." I stretched my arms above me when she finished with the rope. "We could even get your therapist to testify."</p>
<p>"I knew I could trust you, knew you'd be willing to help me," she paused, "but I might be beyond help at this point. None of that stuff can be proven, so I'm pretty sure I'll get a life sentence." Then Becky started crying again, this one more hysterical. "I can't die in prison, Rachel, I can't. They'd tear me to pieces in there. I can't, Rachel, I can't."</p>
<p>I walked over to hug her. "I can hide you," I promised. "I can hide you long enough to get you to Canada, or Mexico. We can get through this Becky. Together."</p>
<p>"I'm so glad you forgave me for all that stuff I did when I was sick. So glad that you believed me."</p>
<p>I just hugged her tighter. "That's what sisters are for, and we're finally real sisters now."</p>
<p>Becky pulled away from the hug, then went over to the mattress and pulled out a small bottle of wine and two banged up but clean Styrofoam cups. "I wanted to save this for you, for us, as a peace offering" she told me. She looked relieved now, and I was hopeful that we might make it to freedom.</p>
<p>I reached for the bottle, but she held it back. "No, I'll pour it." She went over to a makeshift table made out of partially crumbled bricks and a rectangular chunk of musty wood.</p>
<p>I smiled to myself as she got the wine ready, already coming up with plans to get Becky out of here. She handed me a cup, then held her own up for a toast. I clinked Styrofoam to Styrofoam, and said "To sisters."</p>
<p>She replied with her own toast, "To peace after…" She mumbled the last bit so I couldn't make out what she said, but it didn't matter. We both raised our cup and drank.</p>
<p>The wine was a fairly pricey blend, one that I've loved for years. It tasted of perfectly matured grapes with a touch of blackberry. Only, this one was a little bit off. Kind of a bad aftertaste before you even swallowed. I looked at my sister in confusion, the room starting to move around on its own. "What…" I managed to mumble.</p>
<p>She smiled at me, the craziest I have ever seen her look. "Peace after death," she said, eyes shining, before she drank the last of the wine in her cup in one gulp. "You and me, together," she muttered as she fell down. It was the last thing I saw before I fell next to her.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~~~</p>
</div><i>"Hello, I'm Tanya Michaels for your evening news. Tonight, we have new information from Brazil, and the latest on the new tax bill that Congress is trying to pass, but first we go to Alex Betts for a local story with a tragic ending. Alex?"</i><p>
  <i>"Tanya, I'm here in front of the abandoned tire factory where a double suicide took place only two days ago. The two victims were twin sisters, Rebecca and Rachel Jones, who grew up only a few miles away from where they died. The police are considering that it might have been a suicide pact between the two, since there was no evidence of a struggle, and the time of death for each woman was only a few minutes apart.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"One of the twins, Rebecca Jones, was wanted for the murder of James Forsythe, of California Love vineyards fame. His wife, Sandy, had died only two years earlier, so their two children are now trying to cope as best they can. A memorial fund has been set up in his name, with donations going towards the mental health treatment community, which he was often active in, using his degree in psychology to offer therapy sessions to those that needed them, free of charge.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"It's said that Rachel had always had psychological problems, ranging from pathological lying to violence. She was often in trouble at school, and hadn't had any better luck in college. Her sister Rebecca was the polar opposite: well behaved, polite, and as clean a record as a person could have. That was, until the murder. Dr. Forsythe had been counseling her for the two weeks leading up to the crime. His notes described her as a delightful young woman who had deep guilt issues concerning her sister's life of petty crime. He had just prescribed her an antianxiety medication three days prior to the murder, and the police will be doing a full toxicology report to see if said medication caused the homicidal urge that took her to the doctor's house that night.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"The family of the twins, though, are trying to get through this tragedy one day at a time. The whole community is helping them, even going so far as to install a plaque in the nearby park, honoring the two.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"The town will also be having a memorial service for both women on the fifth. Their mother said, when asked about the service being for both them, that even if Rachel had lived a troubled life, she still deserved to be honored with her sister.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"I'm Alex Betts for News At 5, reporting from a town overcoming tragedy. Back to you, Tanya."</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"Thank you, Alex. And now we're off to Washington to learn more about the latest tax bill proposal."</i>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~~~</p>
</div>
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